Does This Make Sense To You?

If China's growth is subsidized at all, it's surely subsidized by the amount of goods we buy from them.

But they are a growing competitor with the United States and clearly want to control Asia and the Pacific.

Meanwhile, we have a border problem with Mexico, another country with a lot of impoverished citizens. If we're going to do a lot of trade with a country, Mexico makes a lot more sense than China. Improving their economy could eventually totally eliminate the problem of undocumented "illegal" workers coming across the border for work.

This is what is so hard even for atheists to accept: If you believe in free will, you believe in miracles. Events which are exceptions to the ordinary laws governing events and interactions in the real world.

I have long said that making Mexico a better place to live instead of exploiting the people there for cheap labor is the way to slow illegal immigrants. Too bad Americans are disconnected greedy assholes. which is not entirely our fault; as our wages have been stagnated or lowered we need the cheap crap just to get by and to fill that hole in our hearts which is a bottomless pit.

A good place to start would be to turn Mexico into the new China. Having paying work would help Mexicans stay with their families in Mexico instead of illegally crossing the border in order earn more money than they can in Mexico. They should be competitive with Chinese labor, and just as is happening in China, over time it will raise their entire economy.

I don't understand why neither Obama nor Romney is pushing this idea, unless they are afraid of anti-Mexican racism.

Maybe we should use various incentives to get American businesses to invest in Mexico. There's far more benefit to the United States of a prosperous Mexico than a prosperous China. I fail to see a downside.

What is their business climate like? Surely a carrot/stick approach by a much more powerful country would result in major concessions eventually, not to mention the attraction of the higher revenues the government would enjoy.

Another beneifit: as their government brings in higher revenues, they can do more to fight the war on drugs within their own borders. If they can't do it, and if their criminal underworld continues to move north from bases in Mexico, the United States may have no choice but to go in and do it for them. I think they'd prefer to do it themselves, but I'm sure one reason they don't is lack of funds for the necessary resources.

My guess is, that the original plan, by which administration, I can't be sure, was to give China a taste of Capitalism, to lure them out of their godless Communist ways, and the cheap labor didn't exactly hurt either. Meanwhile, their markets were opened to us, so we get our investment money back as they buy our products.

But the Chinese are clever people - they will learn from us, then we'll see who is the master, Grasshopper --

Steve is right - along the US/Mexcan border there is what is known as the Maquiladora Industry - a series of Fabricas, or factories, set up where Mexican workers come to manufacture products commissioned by US companies under the Free Trade Act that had Republicans all bent out of shape some years back.

All of Central America is a source of cheap labor, if that's the only reason for using China, but I suspect it's more than that - it's a case of feeding the Tiger.